Forgotten Mistake
by ALC Punk
Summary: Kitty Pryde finds herself trying to keep Pete Wisdom alive after he's been shot trying to save her life.


Disclaimer: not mine.  
Rating: R, violence.  
Pairing: Kitty Pryde/Pete Wisdom Set: eh. Sometime during Kitty's stay in Chicago.  
Notes: this was for Medie's kissapromptathon, but it's a little long. 1,065 words long. The prompt was 'red'. 

**_Forgotten Mistake_** by ALC Punk!

There is blood everywhere. So much of it, it stains her pants from blue to black, the material soaking it up as she kneels in it, leaning over him. Hands that look dipped in red paint press down against his abdomen, the cloth beneath them soaked even darker. "Don't do this."

A cough, and Pete almost laughs, but there's fear in his eyes. "Not plannin'..."

The shots had been meant for her, and she wants to scream at him. He'd forgotten, like he had in the early days, that she could simply phase and it wouldn't hurt her. And so he shoved her out of the way, and the spray of bullets that she would have avoided stitched their way across him. "Stupid idiot."

Forgotten, or not, she's not sure. And she doesn't care. The man who shot him is dead, Kitty made sure of that--even before she knew how bad Pete was, she'd been moving across the street, cars going right through her. The man had tried to run, and she'd phased him into the stop sign.

"No dying on me, you asshole." She snaps, voice almost breaking when she sees the blood frothing on his lips.

Three bullets were all it took to shred the abdomen. Kitty knows the medical terminology, has seen far too many results in her days with the X-Men. But then again, the X-Men don't die.

Pete Wisdom is not an X-Man.

And Kitty Pryde is not crying as he dies, his blood staining her jeans. "Pete," she says, voice pleading, "Pete, don't you fucking die on me, you hear?"

"Yeah..." his voice trails off and another cough rattles the blood in his lungs, bubbling up over his lips.

She kisses him, tasting blood and death. It's fierce and so full of anger, she wonders if she's breaking apart the world when she pulls back. "God..."

"Kit..."

The whisper makes her stiffen, and she looks at him. The blue around his lips is worse, his color fading to grey. "You're not allowed." She says.

She's not sure why it's taking the ambulance so long--maybe it's the neighborhood, maybe it's the man with a stop sign through his chest. Either way, time is running out. Someone in the crowd around them called, she heard him.

As if her thoughts conjure it, the siren sounds. Too loud, too close, and with a start, she realizes she's heard it for a while.

Too focused on Pete.

"Miss, we need to take his vitals."

They pull her back, and it's a whirlwind, then.

People and things, and tubes and pulses and she's shoved to the side and told to wait. Then they're loading him, calling ahead and saying he's not stable at all, and, god but she can't move for a moment, and then she's jumping on board with them. "I'm coming with you."

She doesn't know how much time passes between there and the hospital, she just knows he flatlined twice, and the second time it was her hand in his chest, manipulating his heart. They didn't ask how she did it.

When they take him from her, she's completely numb. Standing there, in the foyer of a hospital she doesn't know, she simply wants to run. Pete is dying. Pete is probably dead. Pete is not going to bounce back and be full of life and health ever again.

"Miss?" Kitty shakes her head and then looks at the receptionist. The woman is looking at her with sympathy, "Miss, you came in with the gunshot victim, right?"

"Yeah." Hey, her voice works.

The receptionist tsks and gestures to the hall on her right--Kitty's left. "There's a washroom down there, if you'd like to clean up."

"Oh. Sure."

Making her way to the door marked 'women', Kitty wonders if she's leaving bloody footprints. She doesn't stop to check.

Ice cold water on her hands makes her wake from her daze, slightly, and she has the morbid thought that she's washing Pete away with every bubble and scrubbed knuckle. Her arms are coated up to her elbows, and the mirror tells a story that includes most of her shirt and jeans. She can't exactly wash those, so she doesn't try. She blots carefully, pressing Pete's blood against her skin.

Back out in the hall, she has a disorienting moment as a gurney trundles by, a man on it, screaming as a nurse perches on his chest, trying to keep him down. It's not Pete.

The receptionist looks politely at her. "Yes?"

"Where--"

"Annie, did you see the girl that came in with that DOA?" A dark-haired doctor is talking without paying attention to his surroundings as he comes through from the back. "She was here, but she's disappeared, and we need to notify his next of kin--"

"Doctor."

Licking suddenly cold lips, Kitty puts a hand on the counter, "His name's Pete Wisdom. I think he has a sister--Romany."

"Shit." The man stares at her, "Look, I'm sorry," he runs a hand through his hair, tries something like a smile and fails. "Miss, I'm sorry. There was just too much damage."

"I know. I saw him go down." She swallows, "Can I see him?" She can't explain about being an X-Man, about needing a body to prove death, about cosmic entities and clones and futures that never came to pass.

The doctor studies her, then nods, "It's not very pretty, he's still tubed and covered in wires from various machines."

"That's fine."

He leads, Kitty follows. The door swings inwards, and she stares at the covered lump of dead flesh on the gurney and feels sick.

The doctor leaves her standing there, and it takes her far too long to move and fold back the fabric.

Pete Wisdom wasn't a particularly pretty man in life, but in death, he's a grotesque parody of human. Tubes and wires--far too many--crisscross his pale flesh. And Kitty gulps in a breath, catching on a sob. "You weren't allowed to die," she grates out, voice full of anger. Anger is better than tears.

When he doesn't magically wake, she quietly covers him back up and leaves. There will be questions, she's sure. Police to poke and prod, reporters to turn her into a sensation.

But right now, she doesn't care. All she wants is to go home and sleep.

-f-


End file.
